Thursday, June 20, 2013

We sat outside the corner of Campbell St and Cintra St in Chinatown. The Rolex shop was not open yet in the early morning and we were all hiding in the shade under the scorching sun. Then I noticed a women clicking away with her iPad non-stop. She broke the silence and started talking to Jenny Tsai from Taipei. She introduced herself as Ms Wong and she was the lady boss of the Rolex shop!!! She is also from Taiwan! Jenny and Ms Wong struck the same chord and Jenny got an instant discount for a Rolex lady watch at RM$24,000. Of course no sketcher was ready to pay that kind of money. We were all happy to complete the sketches. Ms Wong was nice to offer us drinks, toilet breaks and lots of photo takings with what else, her iPad. Once again, this showed that 'sketching is a social activity'. We later had our lunch at the traditional dim sum shop a few doors away and again, some sketchers were sketching the food that started a lively interaction between the waiters and some other folks in the shop.

favourite art quotes

"I dream a lot. I do more painting when I'm not painting. It's in the subconscious." Andrew Wyeth

"I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies." Le Corbusier

"If people knew how hard I have had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem wonderful at all." Michelangelo

"From the time I was six, I was in the habit of sketching things I saw around me, and around the age of fifty, I began to work in earnest, producing numerous designs. It was not until after my seventieth year, however, that I produced anything of significance. At the age of seventy-three, I began to grasp the underlying structure of birds and animals, insects and fish, and the way trees and plants grow. Thus, if I keep up my efforts, I will have an even better understanding when I am eighty, and by ninety will have penetrated to the heart of things. At one hundred, I may reach a level of divine understanding, and if I live a decade beyond that, everything I paint-every dot and line-will be alive. I ask the god of longevity to grant me a life long enough to prove this true." Hokusai, postscript to One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji [translated by Carol Morland]

"I'm glad I haven't found my style yet. I'd be bored to death." Degas

"The artist is primarily a visual person. I have always believed that there is no essential difference between the basic visual relationships that concern the fine artist, the graphic artist, the industrial designer, and the architect. The difference is in the degree of complexity of visual organization demanded by each situation. Beyond that, there are the materials and techniques of each area. I am convinced that there is a visual discipline suitable for all of these areas. It is based on the exciting concept that there can be order and structure to the organization of visual expression." Rowena Reed Kostellow

"I've always rated doodles as a method to capture or generate solutions to a creative problem. I also doodle in meetings and although refused to be intimidated into giving up, I always felt very slightly guilty. No one ever asked me to actually stop. I suspect they were caught between the belief that I wasn't paying attention and the desire to enjoy the final results. Anyway its good that some scientist thinks it helps retain information. Why do scientists tot up the numbers and announce the result like they've discovered something new? . . . Most creatives I know are aware of the value of doodling and many have given thought to the mechanics and psychology behind it. None, that I know anyway, felt the need to publish an academic paper though." Alan Scott